Pastor’s Ponderings

Dear Ones,

I have been thinking about time and timing, seasons and rhythms and the circle of life lately. We’ve entered the dark cycle of the year, and the winter solstice — the longest night of the year — will soon be upon us. We have developed a culture that is largely built on ignoring or avoiding the impact of the seasons, with central heating and central air conditioning and electric lighting both indoor and outdoor, and 24-hour cycles and schedules for industry and services.

Don’t misunderstand me — I am not interested in going back to a world lit only by fire; I find that I can appreciate the beauty of nature and the changing of the seasons as well as the technology that bring us comfort and safety. And I am grateful.

But occasionally I notice that I lose track of time and even of days or weeks, because my life is regulated by clocks and schedules that aren’t related to the rhythm of the world around me, and I wonder what I am missing. And then I wonder about what we miss about the rhythm and relationship between the natural world and our life of faith — Pastor Becky describes the workings and the colors of the church calendar in her letter. As the days grow darker and the nights grow longer, we tell the story of a world waiting for hope — and just after the solstice, we tell the story of hope that comes in unexpected ways. As the bleak days of February give way to the storms of March, we prepare for a time of planting but also a time of struggle, when our resources are thin and challenges come from every side, culminating in the great spiritual and political conflict of Holy Week, leading up to “Good” Friday when it seems all hope is gone, and then the news of Resurrection — the story of new life with all of its terrors and its surprising joy.

And I need the story of waiting for hope and having it show up in unexpected ways. I need the rhythm of light and darkness that we follow to tell the story. In a world that seems, at times, to have spun off its axis, I am grateful for the coming of the light and the coming of darkness that remind us that the world is still turning, that there is an order to life, and that even the darkest night brings with it a new dawn.

Rev. Dr. Wil Gafney, one of the leading womanist bible scholars, teachers, and preachers of our day, woke me up to a new way of understanding this hope today. She wrote,

“I have come to appreciate Advent so much more without the light/dark binary. Rather, I see darkness as the generative space in which light is conceived and from which it is born. Both holy, both life-giving.”